James Holmes, National Interest: Would China Really Go to War with Taiwan over Some Boats?
So now China is overtly threatening cross-strait war should U.S. Navy vessels tarry at seaports in Taiwan. Congress and the Trump administration contemplate such port calls in the text of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. President Donald Trump has just signed the act into law. Afterward, diplomat Li Kexin announced that he had informed U.S. officials that Beijing meant to invoke its 2005 “Anti-Secession Law” if Washington does dispatch naval vessels to Taiwan. Under that measure, China’s leadership reserves the right to deploy armed force to keep the island from declaring formal independence from the mainland.
And it served notice that it will exercise that right. “The day that a U.S. Navy vessel arrives in Kaohsiung,” proclaimed Li, “is the day that our People’s Liberation Army unifies Taiwan with military force.” In short, he issued a public threat, and a public threat demands some form of public reply from its targets. If Trump and Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen now fail to arrange American port visits, they will appear to have bent to Beijing’s will—and no political leader relishes seeming to waffle, for fear of retribution from his constituents.
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WNU Editor: This Chinese threat is my definition on what self-defeating diplomacy looks like. And no .... China is not going to invade Taiwan.
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